


The Purloined Pin-Up Pics

by the_genderman



Series: Trans Bucky 'Verse [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, F/F, Gen, If it happened in this 'verse, Moving In Together, Not Canon Compliant, Nude Photos, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Tony still has some things to learn about tact, Trans Bucky Barnes, Trans Female Character, no Zemo just some pervy douchebag who steals private photos, or maybe that's AU Zemo, roughly the timeframe of Captain America Civil War, which it in fact did not, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 01:33:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12223041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_genderman/pseuds/the_genderman
Summary: “Yeah, my thoughts exactly, Caparooney,” Tony added drily. “You ever come across any records of anyoneelsegetting that particular brand of prosthetic?”Steve just shook his head, temporarily speechless.“So are you in agreement with myself and F.R.I.D.A.Y. that the subject in these photos is, in fact, Barnes?” Tony asked.





	The Purloined Pin-Up Pics

**Author's Note:**

> Tags say "Bucky," but in this 'verse her chosen name is Jennifer. Blame it on the search function.
> 
> Also, I totally gave into my inability to come up with a proper ending for a fic here. It just kinda cuts off, and I'm somehow ok with that.

“Ah, Steve. So glad you could join us,” Tony said, making an exaggerated gesture of welcome, sweeping his arms as Steve entered the conference room.

“Yes, well, it’s kind of hard to ignore my phone when it starts screaming ‘Urgent meeting!’ on repeat and won’t let me silence it until I physically reach the meeting room,” Steve replied, shoving his blessedly silent phone back into his pocket and taking a seat at the empty table. “And when you said ‘us,’ who else is supposed to be here?”

“Just you, me, and F.R.I.D.A.Y. She’s found something, ah, I believe you should see,” Tony said, taking the chair next to Steve and making some kind of convoluted hand-gesture which caused a holographic screen to pop up in the middle of the conference table.

“But first, a little background,” Tony added. “After I cleaned up my act a bit in the past few years, I decided I probably ought to do a little more about my public image. First J.A.R.V.I.S. and now F.R.I.D.A.Y. have the responsibility of performing a thorough once-a-week internet search of the usual spots, tabloids, embarrassing celebrity photo blogs, revenge porn sites, those kinds of places, to see if any ‘new’” and here, Tony made air quotes which accidentally caused the screen to invert its colors. He corrected the color-swap and continued “photos from my irresponsible youth have cropped up. And if any have, then Pepper drafts a cease-and-desist or whatever and gets the pics taken down. There hadn’t been any hits in about a month and a half, so I was a little surprised when F.R.I.D.A.Y. alerted me to a small collection of compromising photos. 

“And of course I have to check the photos out before getting them taken down, so I know what kind of damage control I’ll need to run. There’s five pictures that F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s flagged for removal. That’s not a lot, thankfully. So I do what I always do. I pull them up and give them a look-see,” Tony explained as he made another hand gesture that brought the first photo onto the screen. “And as soon as I see this one here, I know already that this is not someone I’ve slept with. For starters, much too recent of a photo. This was taken on a smartphone. Not the most top-of-the-line new model, but new enough that it certainly did not exist during the worst of my party days. And secondly. I don’t know about you, Steve-o, but I don’t generally sleep with ladies who could bench press me. I mean, Jesus, look at her arms. Even under that robe-thing, you can still tell her arms are about as big as yours. Which begs the question: why did F.R.I.D.A.Y. flag these photos?”

“I’m going to assume that this very long lead-up does actually have an answer?” Steve asked, trying not to stare at the photo projection. It was fairly tame, as far as racy photos go, but it looked like it was from someone’s private photoshoot. Not something that was supposed to end up in the less-than-savory corners of the internet.

The woman in the photo was in a pin-up type pose, but cut off at the chin so her face couldn’t be seen. She was wearing a red, satiny, summer robe tied at the waist but just open enough to show a little skin. Her left hand was tucked behind her back, her right hand up in a coy little gesture, one finger on her chin, head tilted slightly to the side. Her hair was dark and fell to a little past her shoulders.

Tony swiped over to the second photo. The woman still had her left hand behind her back, but her right hand was holding the belt of the robe and the robe was now loose and open to her waist. Steve glanced over at Tony, his eyebrow rising in an expression of ‘why?’ Tony said nothing but swiped over to the third photo. 

Steve blushed a little. It’s not that nudity or sexy photoshoots embarrassed him, but that these photos clearly weren’t supposed to be shared with him. Or with Tony. Or _especially_ with the questionable parts of the internet. Photo number three showed the robe slipped down off the woman’s right shoulder all the way down to her elbow, her hand holding the fabric up to cover her breast. A brown half-moon of areola peeked out over her fingers.

“Alright, Tony, stop,” Steve said, pushing his chair back. “Is this another of your ‘Steve’s a prude’ jokes? Why are you showing me these? This is invasion of privacy.”

“Hang on a bit, ok? Numbers four and five are the really interesting ones, and I don’t mean in a lascivious way. I mean, ok, in that way, too, but also in… you know, showing them to you in chronological order made a lot more sense ten minutes ago,” Tony backpedaled. “I can have F.R.I.D.A.Y. blur out the naughty bits for you, if you’d prefer.”

“I’d prefer not to be rooting through someone’s bedroom photos, but if they’re _actually_ something relevant to us as Avengers, then yes, please do. And assuming she, whoever she is, didn’t upload these herself, you’re going to get them taken down the same way you would your own compromising photos, right?”

“Oh, believe me, they’re relevant and they’ve already been removed. And F.R.I.D.A.Y. is monitoring the situation in case anything else pops up,” Tony said, air-typing a few commands at the screen. “Aaaand, done,” he added, swiping over to photo number four.

Even with judicious blurring, number four certainly was racy; the robe had been abandoned entirely. The camera’s focus had slipped upwards just enough to catch the salacious grin the woman was giving her photographer as she cupped her breasts.

“Ok, Steve. If you can manage to take a glance at a little good old fashioned pornography, how about you look at this image and tell me if anything stands out to you, if anything looks, oh, you know, a little _too_ familiar?” Tony needled.

Steve looked closer, actually looking at the details. His eyes froze momentarily on her left hand, then tracked involuntarily up her arm to her shoulder. His brows knitted in confusion and his jaw dropped into a look of ‘...what?’ 

“Yeah, my thoughts exactly, Caparooney,” Tony added drily. “You ever come across any records of anyone _else_ getting that particular brand of prosthetic?”

Steve just shook his head, temporarily speechless.

“So are you in agreement with myself and F.R.I.D.A.Y. that the subject in these photos is, in fact, Barnes?” Tony asked.

“Uhhhhh,” Steve said, trying to compose himself. “Yes? There’s been a _few_ changes since 2014, but I’d say that’s, uh, h-her. Any location data on these images or other information you could use to figure out where… she is?”

“Nah, someone scrubbed the location data pretty well,” Tony said, looking both disappointed and a little impressed, “but photo number five may offer a bit of a lead. Our mystery camera-lady makes a sort of an appearance.”

Tony swiped over to photo number five. Barnes had her face, mostly hidden by her hair, pressed against another woman’s thigh, her arms wrapped around her bare legs. The second woman had the fingers of one hand twined in Barnes’s hair. Her other hand was holding the phone to take the picture. The photo cropped the second woman off just above the navel.

“I know, facial recognition’s got nothing to go on, but, I’d say _that_ ,” Tony pointed at two distinct scars just above the second woman’s hip, “is at least a start. Scars are probably pretty unique, right?”

“Yeah,” Steve said distractedly. He knew those scars. Not that he’d tell Tony that, but he knew who they belonged to. “Hey, um, not to spread these photos any further than they already have been, but do you think you could send a copy of number five to my phone and I can delete it later? Not like _that_ , Tony,” Steve amended, seeing Tony’s expression. “It’s just that Natasha’s pretty good at digging up information and she might agree to help me. You, on the other hand? She’d probably give you the third degree about digging up other people’s dirty pictures.”

“Hm, yeah, she probably would. I mean, we’re professionals, she works well with Iron Man, but I still don’t think she likes Tony Stark very much personally. Saw too much of my irresponsible side back in ’09,” Tony grudgingly agreed. “Alright, gimme your phone. I’ll put number five in a special folder that’ll self-destruct in a week, completely deleting the image data. That way we’ll limit the number of copies floating around.”

“Sounds good,” Steve said, pulling his phone out of his pocket and handing it to Tony.

\----------------------

Steve found Natasha later that afternoon coming out of the gym.

“So, hey, uh, do you have a moment to talk?” Steve asked, running his fingers through his hair, attempting to smooth it down but just making the front stick up even more.

Natasha gave him the knowing look she got when she could tell he was trying to act all calm and collected when he was anything but.

“Yeah, sure. You wanna talk here or should we find somewhere a little less public?”

“A little less public, please, yeah,” Steve stumbled out.

Natasha ducked back into the gym, checked the steam room, found it not currently in use, and gestured Steve in ahead of her. She shut the door after him, sat down on one of the benches, and folded her hands in her lap. She gave Steve a polite stare until he finally sighed and began to talk.

“Let me just start by saying I didn’t go looking for this picture,” Steve said, unlocking his phone and tapping the screen as he spoke. “F.R.I.D.A.Y. found it, alerted Tony, who found me and showed it to me. He doesn’t know it’s you, and he doesn’t know I know it’s you.” He handed her his phone.

Natasha looked at the image on the screen, raised her eyes to Steve, looked back down at the phone, and then back up again. “Where did F.R.I.D.A.Y. find this?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t know exactly where. Tony said she does a weekly scan of, and I quote, ‘the usual spots, tabloids, embarrassing celebrity photo blogs, revenge porn sites, those kinds of places.’ But,” Steve raised one finger. “He says he’s already gotten all the photos removed from wherever they were found.”

“How many photos were there?”

“There were five. And I want to apologize now, because I saw all of them, and I can tell they weren’t meant for public viewing. And, well, since I _have_ seen them, I’ve got a few questions.”

“Five. Ok,” she sighed. “That was the entire photoshoot. And I wish I could answer your questions, but it’s not my place to do so. That’s Barnes’s call.”

“So, you two…?” Steve trailed off.

“Yeah. We’ve been together since October of ’14.”

“Wow, that’s, uh, congratulations. You’ve kept that under wraps really well.”

“Yeah, we have. Thanks. And not to be rude, but I’m gonna have to cut you off now. I have to make a call,” Natasha said, standing up and handing Steve’s phone back.

“Yeah, of course,” Steve said, walking with Natasha as far as the gym door. She turned towards the wing with the Avengers’ living quarters. Steve paused, then turned back into the gym. He collected his gym clothes from his locker. There were some things he’d have to mull over now, and he did his best mulling while working out.

\---------------

Natasha made sure all recording devices in her room were off for her call. F.R.I.D.A.Y. got a little antsy when she wasn’t allowed to listen in, but she knew Natasha well enough that she respected her privacy. The phone was answered on the fifth ring.

“Hello, Natasha,” Jennifer said, her voice thick with sleep.

“Hello, Jennifer,” Natasha said, artificially cheerful with concern. “I wouldn’t call you this late unless there’s an emergency, and there has been.”

“What’s wrong?” Jennifer asked, suddenly alert.

“At any point within the past month, has your phone been out of your immediate possession? I don’t mean when you’ve plugged it in to charge while sleeping, but did you lend it to anyone to make a call or anything like that?” Natasha inquired.

“Uh, a couple weeks ago, it stopped charging, so I took it into a repair shop to see what was wrong with it. They thought it might be the charging port so they had to take it to the back of the shop, but it turned out my cable had just gone bad, got bent too many times and some of the wiring inside had broken,” Jennifer explained. “Why do you ask?”

“You remember that little photoshoot we did last month?”

“How could I forget?”

“Yeah. I’ve just been informed that those photos made it onto a less than savory corner of the internet. And now I’m gonna need to have a stern talk with the repair shop you used.”

“Our photos?” Jennifer startled. “Where?”

“I don’t know exactly where—F.R.I.D.A.Y., Tony’s AI, found them, passed them along to Tony, who showed Steve, who showed me because he recognized my scars from the last photo—but they’ve supposedly been taken down,” Natasha explained, hoping to calm Jennifer a bit. They both needed to keep a cool head. 

“ _Steve_ saw them?” Jennifer asked, sounding more embarrassed than worried about that.

“Yeah, Steve saw them all, but he’s _Steve_ ; he apologized to me for having seen them. I don’t know how many other people saw the photos before they got taken down, though. We need to decide what we’re going to do.”

“Do I need to get my stuff ready to move? I don’t want to leave Bucharest, but I will if I have to. Do you have another safehouse ready for us to go to? God, why now? I’ve actually got a good job and I like it here,” Jennifer said, her words coming a little too fast.

“Babe, remember to breathe. Can you do that for me?” Natasha interrupted, trying to stave off a panic attack. “Just breathe for a minute, ground yourself so we can talk this over.”

Natasha listened as Jennifer’s breaths became less rapid and more even.

“Ok. I think I’m good,” Jennifer said after a moment. “Doing something. What did you have in mind?”

“Remember how we’d talked about having you come to live at the Avengers compound?” Natasha asked, gently broaching the topic again. Jennifer had been pretty hesitant about it the past few times it had been discussed.

“You’re really trying to sell me on this, huh?” Jennifer replied.

“Well, yeah. It’s a little bit of selfishness on my part, wanting you here with me, where I don’t have to make excuses or sneak away for a few hours together sandwiched between at least twice as much travel time,” Natasha replied. “But honestly? It’s not a bad idea. It’s probably the safest place for you right now.”

“Do I have to decide right now?”

“Well, I mean, _no_ , but soon?”

“I’ll sleep on it, call you tomorrow? I mean, if I’m gonna leave, I should put in notice, let my job know so they can back-fill my position. If I don’t have to leave them hanging, I’d prefer not to,” Jennifer said slowly, sounding like she was already leaning towards saying ‘yes.’

“Of course. Call me when you’re ready, I don’t care what time it is here, I’ll pick up,” Natasha answered. “I love you and hope to see you soon.”

“Love you too, babe.”

Natasha hung up the phone and started running over scenarios in her head of how she might broach the topic of bringing Jennifer into the Avengers fold.

\------------------------

Natasha’s phone rang, jolting her awake. It was still dark, with that wee hours of the night stillness. She groped for her phone and answered with a ‘hey’ that she hoped didn’t sound too sleepy.

“I’ll do it,” Jennifer said, conviction in her voice. “I’ll come to the Avengers compound. I want to have a Skype call with then first, to make sure everyone’s ok with it first, though. I can’t put in my notice and move to New York only to find that no one wants me around.”

“That won’t be a problem, and yeah, we can get you in a conference call. How about noon New York time? What’s that for you?” Natasha asked, trying to hold back a yawn.

“Seven pm, so yeah, that should be a good time for me.”

“Good. I’ll send everyone one of those obnoxious unmutable meeting alerts Tony came up with so I can be sure everyone shows up. And order some pizza. Otherwise Clint would probably just turn his hearing aids off and ignore it. He’ll go anywhere if there’s pizza involved. So, uh, anyway. Call my laptop at seven your time and I’ll have it hooked up so we can all see you and you can see all of us. Sound like a plan?”

“Yeah. I’ll see you all then,” Jennifer replied quietly. “Assuming I don’t chicken out.”

“You’ll do fine. I know you will.”

“Thanks.”

\-----------------------

“You may be wondering why I have gathered you all here today,” Natasha said dramatically, flipping open her laptop, the screen showing on the big conference room display. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet. Ah, perfect timing,” she added as her Skype began to ring. She answered the call.

“Hi, oh, wow, there’s a lot of you,” Jennifer said with a little wave from her end of the Skype call. She paused and scanned the room.

Natasha jumped in, scanning over her fellow Avengers gathered around the conference table. “Everyone, this is Jennifer. Some of you may know her under some other names. We won’t be using any of those. And if all goes well, she’ll be moving in with us in a couple weeks.” She turned towards the camera to look at Jennifer. “You already know Steve, but, like you said, there’s a lot of us.” Natasha turned back to the room. “So, how about we go around the table and introduce ourselves?”


End file.
